Robert Standish is ready to rock your vision with a vibrant new series, opening at Costa Mesa’s Martin Lawrence Galleries. The powerful punch of this exhibition expands on his previous series, Rhythmic. Equally impassioned and intense, his latest series, New Works on Canvas, throbs with visceral color and bold gestures. Working in acrylic, the often large-scale works essentially invite viewers to dive into a seemingly swimmable sunset.
The artist creates images that evoke exorbitant floral displays and kaleidoscopic flow. His images are as compelling as neon reflecting on a rainy night street and as tangled as a tropical jungle of gemstones and fireworks.
Some works are on fire with their own inherent radiance, which others shimmer with an opalescent quality, as in the delicate, madly crowded flowers of “Bloom.” Still other images remind the viewer of feathers, perhaps an Amazonian parrot with wild wings, as in the artist’s “The Mind’s Eye.” More restrained are the almost pristine flowers floating in slow motion against royal blue in “Floriography.”
The abstract artist describes his work as being about transcendence, and his paintings have been described as a form of “transcendent expressionism.” It’s a fitting description for their high energy and luminous shine. The thick, emotive surfaces. often crackle with energy. While the brilliant colors of Standish’s palette could clash in other hands, these works have a harmony that quiets their core.
Essentially, these images are rainbows on adrenaline overload, singing to the senses – but they’re also balanced, containing a moment of silence within the rush of paint.
An interesting aspect of Standish’s work is that he was preveiously a photorealist painter. That precision and fine hand is still quite visible, but his palette knife and brush painting has been transported into something more mutable, what he calls a motivation of “random rhythmic color bursts, abundant paint, and most importantly a request for Divine guidance.”
Terming his current work as spontaneous, Standish says that his move into the abstract was driven by a desire to “paint differently [than in] ego driven and deliverable style.” The boldness of his work is an apt outgrowth of color field painting and abstract spiritualism, both of which he describes as inspirational influences. His largest inspiration however is “the creative force all around us.”
It may be that force which inspires his fluidity and his graceful precision, which often implies a captured, liquid motion.
As he connects with the zeitgeist of his creative force, Standish makes sure the force is with you, too, as he weaves his light saber colors into a shimmery glow.
The Los Angeles-based artist has works in the permanent collections of LACMA, at the Weisman Foundation, MOAH, and the Crocker Art Museum, among other collections.
New Works on Canvas will debut Saturday, November 18th at Martin Lawrence Gallery, 3333 Bear St, Costa Mesa, CA, with Standish in attendance. The exhibition will be on display through mid-December, ready to uplift those flagging spirits even during stressful times and the chaotic holiday season.
- Genie Davis; images provided by the artist and gallery